May 18, 1905 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



357 



sections that had been filled with full sheets 

 of foundation for five years, and they seemed 

 to be as good as any. 



E. Whitoomb (Sebr.) — I have not been 

 able to notice any difference. What we 

 might call "fresh" may have been made a 

 year or more before we came into possession 

 of it. 



C. H. DiBBERN (111.)— If it has not been 

 exposed to light and air, it is no better. If 

 the foundation is in thesections, and has been 

 more or less soiled by the bees, it is not so 

 good. 



C. Davenport (Minn.) — I don't believe 



there is any ditTi.rence. I have some that 

 will be 3 years old this season, and I would 

 not give a cent a i^ound to exchange it for 

 fresh-made. 



S. T. Pettit M Ioi. i— I have used it at dif- 

 ferent ages up tu ; years old, and could see 

 but little difference, if in the meantime it had 

 been kept wrapped or boxed up from exposure 

 to light and air. 



J. A. Green (Colo.)— Guided by my bees' 

 preferences, I prefer the fresh foundation, 

 but it would be dilMcult to say how much 

 difference there is. If the foundation has 

 been left packed as it came from the factory- 



protected from air, dust and light — the differ- 

 ence is very slight. It it has been exposed to 

 these agencies, it may be considerable. 



Dk. J. P. H. Brown (Ga.)— Pretty hard to 

 determine the percent of " horn much better ?'' 

 Bees take ciuicker to the fresh foundation be- 

 cause it is softer than the old. If the old is 

 warmed and softened bees will work it quite 

 as readily as the new. 



E. S. LovESY (Utah) — If it is made of pure 

 beeswax, and if rightly made and nicely 

 packed and preserved, I know of no differ- 

 ence. The greater portion of the foundation 

 I used last year was 5 years old, and I never 

 used any that gave me better satisfaction. 



-V Contributcb ^- 

 Special drticles 



=\ 



J' 



Hive-Buying and Hive-Making Symposium 



A Few Opinions on this Important Subject 



MAKING OR BUYING HIVES. 



I have been interested in the controversy regarding mak- 

 ing or buying hives. I made 8 hives with 2 supers each, and 

 the same cost, me $12.05 in the knock-down, where last year 

 hives of better material and one super only cost me SI. 15 each, 

 freight paid. So, hereafter, when I want any hives some 

 manufacturer will get my order. F. P. Dau.m. 



Henry Co., Mo., May 5. 



HOME-MADE VS. FACTORY-MADE HIVES. 



This, like any other question, has -two sides to it. Judg- 

 ing from the recent articles in the .Journal the question seems 

 to be nearly settled in favor of factory-made hives. 



I believe that for the man who has from 10 to 15 colonies, 

 and has not previously had some kind of power and machinery 

 on hand, it would certainly pay him to buy his hives from the 

 factory. I do not think a man could make more than one 10- 

 frame hive complete in a day with frames, bottom-board, 

 cover and dummy, unless he had s-ome kind of power and 

 machinery. Counting that man's time worth, say $1.50, and 

 the lumber and nails which will amount to 50 cents more, he 

 has a hive which costs him $2.00, and very likely when he 

 tries on the cover of some other hive, or its frames, he would 

 sell his hand-made hive for $1.00. 



But I think, on the other hand, that for the man who 

 intends keeping bees as a business, and has from 25 colonies 

 up, it would certainly pay him to buy a saw and some kind of 

 power, and manufacture his own hives. By taking care in 

 regard to gauges and measuring all parts before they are 

 nailed together, he would have as good a hive as he can get 

 from the factory, and I know from experience that one man 

 can cut out material enough for 10 hives in one day. Count- 

 ing that man's time as before at $1.50, and the lumber and 

 nails at 50 cents per hive, he has a hive which costs him about 

 65 cents. The difference in this price from factory-made 

 hives would soon pay for a man's machinery. 



To sum up : I think a man with a few colonies (as it 

 would not pay him to install machinery) would better buy his 

 hives. But a man with from 25 to 50 colonies would save a 

 good many dollars in buying the necessary machinery to build 

 hives. 



Of course, there are such things as sections, separaturs, 

 etc., which it would not pay us to try to make, althouLrli I 

 may just add I saw-cut my own plain separators. 



Ontario, Canada. Tom Thompson. 



MAKE HIVES OR BUY — WHICH ? 



"How are you, Mr. Smith? Did your bees go thrunL'h 

 the winter well ?" 



" Yes, Mr. Brown, they came through all right, but 1 Iwar 

 everything is so high in the bee-supply line that 1 have decil -d 

 to sell out." 



■' Yes, it is true there has been lots of talk on the sulijcct 

 j n the bee-papers. I always try to look on both sides of a 



question, and especially on this one, as I have kept bees my- 

 self for the past 25 years. Of course, Mr. Smitii, when you 

 come right down to it, they've ' got us ' on sections, and the 

 less we say about that the better. We pay $5.00 a thousand 

 for them, and get 70 pounds of wood which we sell at all the way 

 from 10 to 20 cents a pound along with our honey. Suppose 

 we get only 10 cents a pound for it, we receive $7.00 for what 

 we pay $5.00, and we are $2.00 ahead on it at that. 



" Last week I had to go up in Wisconsin to see my daugh- 

 ter, and as I happened to be near a town which has a large 

 plant devoted to the manufacture of bee-supplies, I thought 

 I'd just take a run up there and go through it. I was sur- 

 prised to find so much lumber piled up all around. There 

 must have been thousands and thousands of dollars worth 

 there lying in a pile. Well, sir, I went through the factory 

 from beginning to end, and watched about a hundred men at 

 different machines, each man doing his little part. I saw one 

 machine used just for piercing end-bars for Hoffman frames, ' 

 and they tell me the cost of such a machine is about $500. 

 One thing 1 noticed particularly, and that was the packing 

 department. I saw three or four girls doing nothing but 

 packing up nails. They do this all day long, and these nails 

 are sent along with the' hives to nail 'em up with. Why, I 

 remember the time, years ago, when all we got to our hives 

 was a lot of boards, supposed to be parts of the hive, and then 

 a lot of frames were thrown in with these boards, and then, 

 when you got 'em you didn't know what you had. The lum- 

 ber was poor and knotty. Nothing was marked to show what 

 fit on what, and when you did put 'em together they wouldn't 

 fit. Why, land of goodness, man, nowadays when a bee- 

 keeper gets a hive from one of these big factories you'd think 

 he was expecting a piano. If there's one-eighth inch differ- 

 ence in any one part he kicks, and they told me up there that 

 a lot of these people ship the goods right back if they happen 

 to be a sixteenth of an inch out of the way, and they aren't 

 very often. When a man gets a hive nowadays he receives 

 nice, clear white pine, every part marked and done up in 

 packages, and then he gets a set of directions for putting the 

 parts together, so that he couldn't make a mistake if he 

 wanted to. His frames and inside furniture are all systemat- 

 ically put up. He is furnished tin and wire nails and every- 

 thing he can need, even directions which tell him how many 

 nails to use in every board. In fact, he gets everything, as a 

 fellow told me the other day, but the hammer to nail 'em up 

 with. And in the catalog all this means a hive. 



"Yes, I know hives nowadays cost more than they used 

 to, and some say they have doubled ; but when I got on the 

 train I was more perplexed than ever over this bee-supply 

 proposition, only this time I couldn't figure out how they can 

 afford to sell 'em as cheap as thev do." John Ai.len. 



Lake Co., 111. ^ 



MAKE OR BUY HTVES— WHICH ? 



I consider the American Bee Journal entirely right and 

 most wise in recommending bee-keepers to buy their hives. 

 (See editorial, page 291-292.) Yes, even to recommend that 

 the "man who is exceptionally skillful in the use of tools, 

 who makes hives in times that would be spent in the corner 

 grocery, so that really nothing would be counted for his 

 time," to buy his hives ready to nail together, rather than to 

 make his own. .Take a 2-story hive for comb honey, and 

 there will be from 92 to 452 pieces in the completed hive. 

 Now each and every single piece must be accurately measured, 

 nearly every piece measured separately, which takes a great 

 amount of time and is excessivtiy tedious. I am considering 

 the matter from the standpoint of making every hive in the 

 apiary exact duplicates, so that any single piece of any hive 

 will absolutely and perfectly fit any other hive, which, I think, 

 every one will agree is what ought to be done by hand— 

 another tedious job ; then each piece must be planed on all four 



